{"id":3435,"date":"2015-03-29T21:39:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T21:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3435"},"modified":"2016-08-20T20:38:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T20:38:17","slug":"how-to-discipline-your-children-without-rewards-or-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-to-discipline-your-children-without-rewards-or-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"How to discipline your children without rewards or punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rebecca English<\/a>, Queensland University of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Many parents are moving towards \u201cgentle parenting<\/a>\u201d, where they choose not to use rewards (sticker charts, lollies, chocolates, TV time as \u201cbribes\u201d) and punishments (taking away \u201cprivileges\u201d, time-out, smacking) to encourage good behaviour, but encourage good behaviour for the sake of doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

Gentle parents argue that to offer rewards and punishments overrides a child\u2019s natural inclination<\/a> towards appropriate behaviour by teaching them to behave in certain ways purely to receive a reward<\/a>, or to avoid punishment.<\/p>\n

What is discipline?<\/h2>\n

For most people it would seem impossible to discipline without rewards and punishments. However, it depends on your understanding of \u201cdiscipline\u201d. Discipline always has a silent \u201cself<\/a>\u201d in front of it because it\u2019s about controlling yourself.<\/p>\n

So, in the case of parenting, it\u2019s about helping children learn to manage themselves, their feelings, their behaviour and their impulses. We want our children to develop a sound moral compass, to sort behaviours, impulses and feelings into \u201cappropriate\u201d and \u201cinappropriate\u201d and be able to justify judgements about their choices.<\/p>\n

When the term discipline is used, it is often in a sense that implies punishment. This meaning is implied because discipline is associated with a behaviourist<\/a> view of how humans learn. Behaviourism<\/a> is associated with conditioning<\/a>, a process whereby learning is an association between behaviour and good or bad outcome, just like in Pavlov\u2019s dog experiment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, behaviourism is used less and less<\/a> because human behaviour is seen as more complex<\/a> than a simple rewards\/punishments model suggests. Behaviourism is also problematic because it implies people behave in desirable ways only to secure rewards or minimise punishments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want our children to behave in a way that\u2019s desirable just because they might get something or get into trouble if caught. We want our children to do the right thing because they know it\u2019s right, and because they want to do right.<\/p>\n

Motivating children intrinsically not extrinsically<\/h2>\n

Behaviourism teaches children to look for external motivations<\/a> to behave in a desirable way. It has been said that rewards and punishments override a child\u2019s natural inclination<\/a> to do the right thing because they rely on extrinsic (external things that are used to motivate us) rather than intrinsic (a motivator that is internal and usually a feeling of well-being that comes over us when we choose to do something) motivators.<\/p>\n

There is a great deal of research into workplaces<\/a> showing that people do not perform better<\/a> when they\u2019re offered what are known as extrinsic motivators. Surprisingly, that includes money, a better office, a better title or certificates.<\/p>\n

Workplace research suggests that people will behave in desirable ways in their workplace when they feel happy<\/a>. People feel happy at work<\/a> when they feel valued and they feel valued when they have control over their life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Control over life<\/a> is called agency. Most of the research reveals that people who have agency are happier and more productive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in children, agency<\/a> is the ability to have some control over what they do<\/a>. If we think about it, children have very little control over their lives<\/a>. Their parents or caregivers determine most of their day \u2013 when they eat, what they wear, when they can go out, when they stay in, when they nap, just about everything.<\/p>\n

While there are serious safety concerns with children, we can soften our approach and give them more agency over their lives. The effect is likely to be happier children who feel more in control and are more likely to work with us to ensure everyone is happy.<\/p>\n

But, we can\u2019t give children free rein, it\u2019d be mayhem!<\/h2>\n

You are probably reading this and thinking, in horror, that we can\u2019t trust children to have control over their lives. After all, they\u2019d play with knives, set fire to themselves\/the dog\/the house, play with the gas hobs or run onto the road.<\/p>\n

Children need limits. They need to know what\u2019s safe (playing in the safety of their yard) and what\u2019s unsafe (knives, stoves, roads, immolating the dog). Telling a child they can\u2019t do something unsafe is not the same as punishing them. Instead, you can follow these steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Stop the behaviour. If the child is about to run onto the road, scoop them up and hold them. If the child is about to hurt the dog, hold their hand and remove the weapon, if there is one. If the child is about to touch the hotplate move them away. If they\u2019re being rude, you need to stop them too.<\/li>\n
  2. Say something along the lines of \u201c[action] is unsafe, I won\u2019t let you do [action]\u201d. To use the running on the road example, you would say, \u201cRunning onto the road is dangerous; I won\u2019t let you run onto the road.\u201d Or, if they\u2019re rude, you can say, \u201cWhat you just said was hurtful, I won\u2019t let you be hurtful to me\/your sibling\/someone else.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. They might cry, prepare for that. And that\u2019s okay. I cry when I get a speeding ticket, but it doesn\u2019t stop the offence being recorded.<\/li>\n
  4. If they are crying, try to listen to them and reassure them we\u2019ve heard they\u2019re upset. After all, they\u2019ve just had their agency compromised by our concern for their safety. You could say something along the lines of, \u201cI hear you have some big feelings about my stopping you from [whatever it was].\u201d If it was the hotplate example, you could say, \u201cI hear that you really wanted to see what the hotplate felt like, but I can\u2019t let you touch it as it will burn you.\u201d If they were being rude, you could say, \u201cI know you don\u2019t mean to be hurtful, but saying things like that can make people sad.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We need to help our children develop discipline, but we can do this without compromising their sense of self and their agency. It is about following the golden rule of life, \u201cHow would I want to be treated if I was in my child\u2019s position?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n

    Further reading on discipline:<\/p>\n

    How teachers are taught to discipline a classroom might not be the best way<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"The<\/p>\n

    This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
    \nRead the     original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Rebecca English, Queensland University of Technology Many parents are moving towards \u201cgentle parenting\u201d, where they choose not to use rewards (sticker charts, lollies, chocolates, TV time as \u201cbribes\u201d) and punishments (taking away \u201cprivileges\u201d, time-out, smacking) to encourage good behaviour, but encourage good behaviour for the sake of doing the right thing. Gentle parents argue that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":6877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3436,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions\/3436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}